hudsonvalley

News 12 Staff

wchvpp101part2_2023-10-01-12-27-00

They operate some of the most recognizable casinos in America, Tropicana, in Las Vegas, the hard rock in Biloxi. And now Bailey's has set its sights on the Bronx. We've been looking for the perfect site for years. Bay's chairman, Sue Kim joins News 12 for his first interview, discussing their plans to pursue a highly coveted downstate casino license. So right now Bally's is the only gaming operator setting its sights on the Bronx as of now. Why are you betting so big on the Bronx? 70% of the RFP is based on what your economic impact will be to the state. So I think that's multiple fold. The first is, you know, what's your gaming impact? Uh And then what are your, you know, what are your sort of outside of gaming revenue specifically? What are the other economic activities that you bring and how does that positively impact the project on the gaming side? The downstate license is a clean slate. Um Anywhere from the five boroughs, obviously Long Island, Westchester. Um anywhere there can have these three full gaming licenses, we thought about the fact that the race track licenses are there and uh rather than opining, whether or not they're going to receive a full license, they're still gonna be there one way or another. Right. So, um, given that those are the facilities in place where do we think is the optimal place to put a casino? And if you draw a line between the two, and you bisect that line, it pretty much lands right where the golf course is. So we think that that's actually the optimal location for a casino in terms of revenues for the state. You know, we're able to draw customers from Long Island, be able to draw customers from Westchester, even Northern Jersey. The second motivation is, then what's your local economic impact? Well, obviously building a four or 5000 position casino, um, that's gonna be a multi billion mile project. It's going to create, uh, you know, tens of thousands of hours of construction job years. Um, and, you know, probably something on the order of like 4000 permanent jobs, uh, at the casino itself. And now these jobs are great. I mean, you know, especially in a place like New York, which is a union friendly town. Um, we're gonna make the assumption that all the casinos here are gonna be wall to wall, uh, union. And, um, and that means that we are gonna be paying, you know, more than living wages. These are jobs that are gonna start probably, I don't know, I think it's like $30 or something of that. So you're looking at like 70,000 a year. Yeah, 100%. These are people that these are jobs to get people firmly into the middle class. And, and so you're talking about thousands of these jobs, there's really two impacts, right? Gaming is happening all around the New York, New York City area, right? You can go to Connecticut, you can go to Jersey, you can go to Pennsylvania, you can go to upstate New York. It's happening all around. All that means is that those tax dollars are flowing out of state and out of cities. And so look, I just think it's a natural evolution for cities to come back and want to bring those revenues and keep the revenues right here. What kind of response are you getting from community leaders and local policies? Look again, I can't speak for them and I think it's early, but we feel confident they see the situation not this similar than as the way that we see it, which is that it would be deeply appreciated, thousands of living wage jobs that get people right into the middle class. Um I don't know if you know this, but the Bronx is the county in New York that has the most amount of, of retail flight. Essentially, there aren't enough places for Bronx residents even spend money in the Bronx itself so that they have to go to Westchester or Manhattan to spend their money. There's not even enough retail places. And so that's just for retail. I mean, think about Bronx is always in some ways I grew up in New York. Right. So, obviously it, the Bronx is a wonderful, like, if you think about it, it has a wonderful sort of national and global like, brand awareness. It's remember, it's the only uh, borough that starts with a definitive article, right. It's the Bronx, you know, the Bronx, it's not, you know, it's not the Manhattan or the Queens, right? So I think in that way, it's amazing, right? But in the other ways when it comes to actually doing projects for the city, it sort of gets left behind the scope of this project is such that this would be the largest project in Bronx history in the county's history. Um larger than Yankee Stadium. How would you get all those tourists to visit the site from Manhattan? I'll be the first one to say that right now, right now today as it speaks, it's actually sort of a transportation desert. Um And I think that that's really uh one of the major community benefits that we can bring. So obviously, we want to bring jobs, we wanna bring, enter, you know, uh entertainment, retail options, red everything that outside of gaming that keeps people and uh there and engaged. But actually, I think one of the biggest things we can do is help that community, you know, cut through the uh the red tape and connect the Bronx more, more to, um, the city proper. Um, you know, if you think about all the wonderful things, the Bronx does have like Yankee Stadium, the park, you know, the, you know, the zoo, it's, it's a little bit, you know, out of the, the typical tourist destination way, we have to figure out ways to bring, uh, tourists there. Uh II I would say stay tuned on those Zac plans, but I'm very excited about using, uh, I mean, the place to call Ferry point. I'm very excited about using a ferry. Um, um, you know, expanding, you know, the buses and public transportation around, around the area. Um, I don't think we're gonna be able to use trains because it's just not that kind of, uh, place, there's clearly lots of highways and ribbons and whatnot, but I think that we can do work with ferries and buses to really, um, um, uh, connect that park. Have you received a commitment from the city that they would work with you on that to add more options? No. Uh, uh, you know, we haven't. Uh, but we, but we look, I think that when we come to them and come to the state, I, I'm confident that it'll be embraced, you know, can your plan be viable in the absence of more mass transportation? Uh, I don't. Yeah, I mean, the answer is yes. Um, because again, I think you start with the car. Uh you just, just reality of things. But um look laguardia airport as by ferry would be like five minutes. It's literally, you know, and um so I think there's gonna be ways to connect still to come. I think that there is no company that can run at high tax jurisdictions like we can. Valley's chairman reveals what they hope will be their ace in the hole with the New York State Gaming Commission.

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wchvpp101part3_2023-10-01-12-27-23

What's in store for the future of the Trump links golf course. This one is the one that really captured everyone's imagination. Valley's chairman, Sue Kim has long kept his cards close to the vest. This is a win for all of us, but now he's showing his hand to News 12 and revealing why they're feeling lucky about their chances of winning a downstate casino license. And so you'd like your odds now going forward. We do, we do, we feel about I read, you'll need the rights to operate this site for 70 years to get a license right now. You have those rights only through 2035. Why do you think the Parks department said no, when you asked for a longer contract, I don't believe that it's that straightforward, um, to issue, you know, very long term licenses. Um You know, for concessions such as the golf course, we have an alternative regulatory pathway which I don't know if I'm ready to talk about now, but we feel confident that we'll have a reasonable level of support and we believe that we're going to take this alternative pathway and ready to site so that we can actually bid it, but I think it's gonna be exciting. Um And I'll just tell you when you don't have all of the advantages of, you know, um then you have to work harder. That's what we believe and we epitomize that. Um And that's, you know, that is that attitude towards working harder uh is how we won the city of Chicago, our people, we won out three other bids in that process. Why do you think the Chicago elected officials chose your plan? Because we worked harder to listen to what the community wanted. Well, here's what we know. We run casinos in the highest tax jurisdictions in America. So remember, um New York State is a high tax jurisdiction for casino gaming. So right now, the slot operators in the downtown area pay about 50%. Um now, uh really, which is the highest in the land, save one, which is Rhode Island where we play close to 70. And so, uh there's no company that knows how to run at 70 other than ourselves because we're the only one. I think many, many people believe that the business in New York could be the same as the business in, let's say Las Vegas or the cows, but just a different, a different tax jurisdiction makes it a different business. And so, um um I think that that's something that uh I think our competitors take us very seriously because they know what we're good at you know, they look at a tax jurisdiction like 70% 50% 40%. They're like, I don't want it, you know, and New York is a prize so large that even, even the big guys are coming in. But they remember, I think people are gonna be bidding a tax rate. You know, I remember the, remember the way that our FP is designed, we thought that there could be, uh this is one of the major questions I sort of answer when the RP actually came out was that the ultimately you, the operator would bid for the project and the tax rate. So, um I think you can get the sense maybe that we're gonna bid a higher tax rate. And, and is that a challenge to the other bidders? I don't know if the challenge, I think it's just reality and we plan to deliver the most gaming revenue to the state and to do that, that's building the right facility with the right tax rate and you start there and, and that's the, you know, it's so interesting because everyone's like, oh, I wanna promise this or that or this or that. It's like that's not what gets you to, to answer that 70% r question to watch more of our interview with Valleys Chairman Sue Kim or to catch up on the 11 or so. Other proposals being pitched for a New York City area casino. We invite you to head to the features section of news 12 and click on the turn to Tara Tab. Thanks for joining us. I'm Tara Rosenbloom.

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News 12's Tara Rosenblum sat down with Bally's chairman Soo Kim about a proposed casino at Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in Throgs Neck.

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Power & Politics: Bally's bets big on proposed casino at Trump Golf Links in the Bronx

News 12's Tara Rosenblum sat down with Bally's chairman Soo Kim about a proposed casino at Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in Throgs Neck.

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